Written in Chinese by Disciple Ji Hu
Translated into English by Disciple Shan Hui

Guru Lin mentioned that he was going to make a Dharma tour to Poland several years ago. Because of some misunderstandings the tour had been postponed in 2009. Disciples and Dharma friends in Poland invited Guru again in March 2010, and they really showed their sincere, eager heart to meet Guru. Although there were initially some fund problems, at the last minute, as the Dharma conditions matured the Buddha and Bodhisattvas gave appropriate arrangements to make preparation for the tour and finally all the problems were solved. Guru also accepted Disciple Jin-De's invitation, when she took refuge from Guru in mainland China in the summer of 2010, to make a short Dharma visit in Germany.

Guru Lin arrived in Hannover Airport at 20:20 on October 9. Disciples Jin De, Kai Xin Guo and me welcomed him at the airport, and then we took a train to the resort city Bad Prymont where Jin De and Kai Xin Guo lived in. It was already eleven o'clock at night when we arrived there. Guru still woke up early the next morning and went to Disciples Jin De and Kai Xin Guo's home to bless the altar and house for them. At noon, Dr. & Mrs. Ruan and disciples Bu Yuan and Jing Lian came together to attend a welcome lunch for Guru. The Chinese banquet was well prepared and it really showed that all disciples and faithful ones gathered paid their sincere attention to Guru indeed.

Almost all Dharma friends in Germany came here this afternoon so Guru Lin gave a short Dharma talk and then conducted the ritual of "Blessing from Guru Rinpoche's Round Cap Ceremony" for us.

To spread the teachings of the Dharma Lineage of Adi Buddha Mandala to people in Europe is the main purpose of Guru's tour this time. So Guru also conducted the "smoke offering," first ever in Europe, to beseech blessings from gods of mountains, lands and protectors for all disciples and Dharma friends in Europe.

Since Bad Prymont is a world famous "resort town," disciple Jin De arranged Guru to enjoy the hot spring here to relieve his tiredness after the ceremonies. The city is also known as "Little United Nations"—residents here are from over seventy nationalities.

On October 11th, in the morning Guru taught disciples how to practice the Tantric foundational practices, and then in late afternoon explained the key points of concentration meditation to us.

Then we went to the clinic of Dr. Ruan Jian, a Dharma friend, and Guru blessed the whole place for him. It was an unexpected opportunity that Guru Lin taught us right then on how to practice "A Brief Sadhana of Medicine Guru Buddha" in the clinic. Dr. Ruan probably had saved many patients in the past, so he could get such an excellent karma like this!

In the evening, Guru Lin arrived at Disciples Bu Yuan and Jing Lian's home and started another short Dharma visit in Paderborn city.
In the morning of October 12th, Guru blessed the altar and house for Bu Yuan and Jing Lian; afterwards he visited the famous cathedral downtown. This church is one of five Holy Places in Europe; thousands of believers from all over the world would gather here to hold a Mass every year.

Near by Jing Lian's home there is one cemetery; responding to our request Guru went there to conduct his first ever in Europe "Powa service" this afternoon. The cemetery is named "Westfriedhof," it means "Western Cemetery"; what a coincidence! It seemed to indicate connection with the "Western Pureland." We hope that, with Guru's blessings, all beings in the cemetery could escape from the karmic cycle of transmigration.

Guru also went to Dharma friend Fiona's home to bless the house for her in the late afternoon.

In the morning of October 13, Jing Lian respectfully requested Guru to write a Chinese couplet by using the couple's Dharma names (Jing Lian, Pure Lotus, and Bu Yuan, Not Far). Guru wrote out: Planting pure lotus by diligently reciting Buddha’s epithet; Buddha not far away in the absence of worldly considerations. This is a fantastic piece that could serve as our maxim on Dharma practices.

Guru also gave a Dharma name "Wind of Buddha" over the telephone to Jing Lian’s mother “Shi Chun (World in Spring)” who lives in Heilongjiang, China and said that "Spring comes to the world as wind of Buddha blows."

Later Fiona drove us to visit the town Steinhausen (Stonehouse) wherein Xing Ci (Action in Compassion) lives. Guru blessed her home for her and then came back to Bad Prymont in late afternoon.

In the morning of October 14, Guru conducted Powa Service in the Jewish cemetery nearby Jin De’s home. Then Guru gave a short Dharma talk to Jin De’s parents who recently came afar from central China.

At 3 pm, Jin De drove us to visit the fairy tale city Bodenwerder and the "Chinese Massage College." At 6 pm, Disciples Ping Shi and He Le’s daughter Yoga arrived, and she came far away from southern China to meet Guru in time.
In this evening’s farewell banquet, Disciple Kai Xin Guo prepared German famous dishes—roast pork and sauerkraut, and Xing Ci’s husband offered high quality Italian red wine. Everybody was reluctant to leave Guru.

In the morning of the 15th of October, Jin De and Kai Xin Guo took train with us to Hanover Airport. It was already after 4 pm when we arrived at Warsaw airport from Hanover through Munich. Disciples Xu Ming and Shan Hui and 3 Polish Dharma friends were already there waiting for our arrival.

After dinner Guru led Xu Ming, Shan Hui and I to fill two vases which were brought by Xu Ming. The two brass vases were nicely made; one is carved with a pair of dragon and phoenix, while the other is carved with two dragons facing a precious ball.
In the morning of the 16th of October, Guru consecrated some of Shan Hui’s Buddha images, and then left for Vistula River to offer the vases.

There were auspicious omens that morning: An aureole appeared around the sun, and there were a pair of clouds that resembled a phoenix facing down and a dragon facing up after Guru offered the vases into the river.

According to legend there is a mermaid in the River and her body is half woman and half dragon (but modern depiction of this mermaid has the lower half changed to that of a fish). Local people regard her as the Guardian Deity of Warsaw, and we saw her bronze statue nearby on the river bank.

To perform Powa in the huge “Powazki” Cemetery in the Warsaw city was our second program that morning.

In the evening, Guru was invited to give a Dharma talk in English, on "Buddhism as a way of life," at The Asian Gallery of Asia and Pacific Museum. This is Guru’s first public Dharma talk in Europe, and disciple Xu Ming interpreted it, sentence by sentence, into Polish for the audience. Over one hundred persons crowded in the gallery, and the talk got very warm responses.

In the morning of the 17th of October, Xu Ming brought images of Sakyamuni Buddha, Yamantaka, Mahakala, Bodhisattva Vajrapani, Protector Guan Gong and the god of longevity and asked Guru to consecrate them. According to lunar calendar today is the tenth day for making offerings to Gurus, Shan Hui and me joined Guru in reciting the praises.

Guru was invited to visit Kandzeon Sangha Center to offer a Dharma talk on Chan. At the end of the talk, Guru held a lighted candle to pray that the Bodhi light will shine in everyone’s mind to show right path toward enlightenment. The concluding prayer indicated the key point of Chan practices.

In the evening, we visited the Dharma groups of Chan and Tibetan Kagyu and Guru conducted the Blessing from Guru Rinpoche’s Round Cap Ceremony for Dharma friends there.

In the morning of the 18th of October, Shan Hui and I asked Guru to perform Powa service for the Jewish deceased because the hotel we stayed in is located right on the Warsaw Ghetto, the Jewish concentration camp during World War II, as established by the Germans. Thousands of Jewish people were murdered in the camp.

Later we visited the museum where Xu Ming works and met the Director Ambassador of the museum in the late morning. In the Director’s office there were lots of art collections from all over the world, so Guru composed a couplet on the spot: "Gathered things from all over the world in one room, to extend mind's eyes to the whole world," and wrote it down on the commemorate book before he left.

Disciple Rafal drove his car all the way from Rzeszow City to Warsaw to meet us at the hotel at 1 pm. It was already 7:30 pm when we arrived Rzeszow. We had dinner in the apartment of disciple "Centenarian," and then filled the vase which Guru brought from America.

At 8:30 the next morning we drove toward Wislok River to offer the vase. We found that we forgot to bring the vase when driving on the way to the river (it was the first time that such a thing happened), and so we turned back hurriedly to fetch it. Fortunately it was right at 8:52 am when we arrived at the parking place on the bank of the river.

Guru led disciples and Dharma friends to the river bank, and saw a young man rolling a boat in the river. Disciple Rafal asked the man to help us offer the vase by giving Guru a ride to the middle of the river, and he agreed without any consideration. It seems that the dragon of the river arranged everything; let us go back home and then run into a young man to help us!

One of the Dharma friends, Maria, saw special phenomena in clairvoyance when Guru offered the precious vase into River Wislok. She described that there was a column of white light from the sky that went directly into the place where the vase was offered into the river. And then the white light spread in concentric rings in all directions. She said that she felt connection between the spiritual realm and ours, and the ring of energy going further and further, and the next day the spreading still reached out further to all the other cities—the vase offering purified the land.

After offering the precious vase, Guru led all disciples and Dharma friends to the biggest cemetery "Community Cemetery" in Rzeszow to perform Powa service.
At 5 pm that afternoon, Guru Lin conducted the Blessing from Guru Rinpoche’s Round Cap Ceremony and offered a Dharma talk at a local Buddhist Centre. During the ceremony Maria saw lots of black light flowed to the floor from each participant and white light from above descending directly into every participant's body through the top of their heads. It should have been the blessing from Guru Rinpoche. There were also lots of light circles found on photos taken during the ceremony.

In the morning of the 20th of October, Guru was invited to Disciple Pure Dragon's home and consecrated the altar for him. Later with Dharma friends we visited the famous old Lancut Castle in the city. There is one greenhouse in which lots of orchids from all over the world grow. They said that one of them is already one hundred years old, then Guru said very humorously to it, "Hello, our old grandmother!"

At 5 pm that afternoon, Guru gave a Dharma lecture on "Chan and Dzogchen" at the same Buddhist Centre that we were invited to yesterday. In that evening all the Disciples and Dharma friends were reluctant to leave Guru, they knew that Guru will leave for Warsaw the next morning.

In the morning of the 21st of October, we took train back to Warsaw. It is worth mentioning that Disciple Rafal who also accompanied us all the way by train to Warsaw and then took bus back to Rzeszow. It really showed his sincere dedication to Dharma services.

At 5:30 pm that evening, Xu Ming took us to meet Garchen Rinpoche who visited Warsaw to give a Dharma talk on "Ganges Mahamudra." At 10:00 pm that night, Guru was invited to give an interview at Station 1 of Polish Radio; lots of calls came in form all over Poland during the interview, and it was estimated that there were about a million audience listened to this program that night.

The causes of the interview were very wonderful indeed—originally we planed to take train to Warsaw on October 22nd and then go to airport directly, but due to the long distance between these two cities we canceled the original plan and returned to Warsaw one day earlier. The radio station invited originally a Polish Buddhist teacher to give this interview but she couldn’t keep the appointment because of catching serious cold. The host of the radio program asked Xu Ming to suggest another guest to replace the teacher and Guru Lin appeared right in time. What an opportune arrangement Buddha and Bodhisattvas provided! This is really a good causal beginning in Guru's Europe Dharma visits.

In the morning of the 22nd of October, Shan Hui and I asked Guru to perform Powa service again in the hotel for the Jewish deceased because there were some strange things happened the night before. According to lunar calendar today is the 15th day for making offerings to Yidam, and hence Shan Hui and I joined Guru in reciting the praises in Guru's hotel suite. Later we departed from Warsaw airport to fly back to our separate destinations.